Early settlers transported grains, livestock, timber, and firewood across the river from Hallets Cove to the growing city of New Amsterdam. The first passenger boats began operating in the 1700s from Hallets Cove to Hornes Hook—present-day 86th street—in Manhattan. During the 1760s and 1770s, Benjamin Waldron and his son Adolf operated an occasional, irregular ferry service between Astoria and their tract of land near 86th Street in Manhattan. After the Revolutionary War, the constant arrival and departure of military ships gave local merchant Peter Fitzsimmons an idea. In 1782, he rented the Waldron’s landing in Manhattan and began the first regular ferry service between Astoria and Manhattan. A fleet of row boats and sail boats would depart, at predetermined intervals, from a dock at Hallets Cove not far from what is now Socrates Sculpture Park. The fare was one shilling per person. When Stephen Halsey arrived in 1835, an overhaul of the ferry system was part of the sweeping changes he brought to Astoria. Halsey bought the ferry service, constructed new wharves at the foot of Astoria Boulevard on Hallets Point, and upgraded the boats being used to ship people to and from Manhattan. Boats powered by sails and oars were eventually supplanted by “horse ferries.” Before the advent of steam engines, boats were powered by horses walking in circles on the deck, hitched to mechanisms that turned propellers and paddle wheels.